Malta Railway No. 7 to 10

Numbers 7 to 10 of the Malta Railway were the last and heaviest locomotives this small seven-mile line had received. The first one was built in 1895 by Beyer, Peacock & Co. after the two previous locomotives built by Manning, Wardle were found to have too much weight on the driving axles. It was based on a 2-6-4T delivered to the Minas and Rio Railway in Brazil, but did not have a cow catcher and a steam sander.

In comparison to locomotives 5 and 6, the new one could be distinguished by the inclined cylinders. It had more weight on the leading Bissel truck and some of the water was being carried next to the coal bunker to get additional weight away from the driving axles. In the result, the driving axles together only carried a weight of 19 tons and 16 cwt. The locomotive could still haul 150 tons with 25 mph on the level and had no problems with the 2 1/2 percent inclines on the line.

Since No. 7 fulfilled all expectations, three more locomotives were built in 1896, 1899 and 1905. The last one differed from the others in that it had cylinders with a diameter of only 18 instead of 20 inches to reduce costs. In World War I, they had to haul trains of up to twelve coaches. Later when they got new boilers, these were still saturated and identical to the original boilers. Their end came in 1931 when the railway had lost to buses and the line was closed.